Community work doesnt make Filipinos happy daw…
Manila Times
Thursday, October 11,
2007
EDITORIAL
Family, health and religion
FAMILY, health and religion provide Filipinos
their greatest source of happiness, according to a study done by the National
Statistical Coordination Board.
The nonrandom poll of 167
respondents was done during the recent National Convention of Statistics. Guess
what the participants were working on—a proposed National Happiness Index for
Filipinos.
Filipinos get great joy from
family, which got a score of 9.45 out of 10. The family provides a dependable
safety net. When one loses a job, he could expect the clan to take care of him.
Extended families—two or three families living under one roof—mean a bigger
safety net, although it also means that more mouths are digging into the
collective pie.
Family in the Philippines includes the godparents (considered a child’s “second
parents”) and a large collection of titos and titas we hardly know but who
drift in and out of our lives. Filipino families tend to stay together. A son
or daughter planning to get married is usually pressured by the parents to stay
or to build a cottage on the family lot if it is big enough.
It goes without saying that
health is wealth. What are your millions for if arthritis has knocked out your
knees? It is an article of faith among Filipinos that “bawal ang magkasakit.
(it’s a crime to get sick).” Filipinos are terribly scared of hospital costs
and the steep medicine prices and are waiting for the day when President Arroyo
signs the Affordable Medicine Bill.
The Catholic Bishops
Conference of the Philippines and the ministers and pastors should be pleased by
the confession that religion gives Filipinos great joy and comfort. The parish
priests have one more request of the churchgoers, that they increase their
weekly tithe and give more paper bills instead of the usual coins.
Surprising is the finding that
the respondents gave sports and sex very low scores. Filipinos love sports or
they would not build makeshift basketball goals on every sidestreet. If sex is
not popular, why the surge in teen sex, unwanted pregnancies, adultery and
sexually explicit movies?
The least important sources of
happiness are community work, cultural activity and politics. This shows how
isolated Filipinos are from their neighbors. It explains why they are not above
throwing their trash in somebody else’s lot. For the most part, there is little
exercise of citizenship. In many towns and cities, civic pride is wanting.
Culture for most is TV, movies
and the shopping mall. We are worlds apart from Cuba where practically every citizen is a poet or from Japan where classical music competes with rock. Music and
plays are available on weekends at the Rizal Park and Paco Park but the audience is sparse. Creative leisure is
unheard of, which explains why weekends, the time for productive diversions,
are unappreciated and taken for granted.
Filipinos seldom do volunteer
work partly because they are caught up in the rat race and partly because they
expect the government to do everything for them. Politics, Philippine-style,
gives the least joy because it is harmful to family values, mental health and
faith in a merciful God.
